Prosperity theology from a Bible teacher who doesn't believe in prosperity theology on this edition of T-Life. This is T-Life, getting you home with freedom, joy, and faithfulness, and here's Steve Brown with God's roadmap to the Bible. Here's Steve Brown with the teaching for today. Thanks, Mike. If you had your Bible open into the book of Daniel, as we continue with our Old Testament survey. If you were listening yesterday, we took the time to talk about Daniel in the Lines, and we saw in the first part of the sixth chapter of Daniel, that a decree went out from Darius, perpetrated by the leaders in the Kingdom, who said that he oughta created an image, and in order to bring unity amongst the people that everybody for an extended period time should pray to no other God than that image made by human hands of Darius the King. Now, they were trying to get Daniel, and they did, and then we saw how Daniel went to his house, opened the windows, and said, hang it on your ear. I couldn't pray anyway. Well, you didn't say that. Well, Daniel's a friend of mine. He may have said something pretty earthy guy. And he prayed loudly so that everybody knew he was praying, and he ended up in a Lines, then. We talked yesterday about some of the things that you do when you're in a Lines, then. Now, flip over to the, I want to show you the 28th verse of this sixth chapter of Daniel. And this is after, this is after all the bad stuff has happened, and then the book reads as follows. So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus, the Persian study of Daniel was a story. I would add to that verse, Daniel also prospered during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar, and Belches are, and we'll get to that a little bit later on. I'm going to do something I don't usually do, and I'm going to do it by way of corrected to some of the other things that I say. I think I've told you, and I'm going to do this today, and I think I'm going to do this tomorrow. I've told you about when I was a pastor, and we started having healing services. I know Calvinists don't do that, and I know Presbyterians and Reform people just don't do that. But we prayed for people in my study, and anointed them with oil. We decided to do it publicly, and had the whole congregation pray for people who were sick and had great needs, and so on. And I really felt let of God to do it. I did a number of weeks of teachings, and when I was out of town, even outlined what I wanted my associates to teach while I was gone, so that people were prepared. I think I told you we had a young lady who was in a wheelchair who had tried to commit suicide, and it found Christ as a result of a horrible setting. I told the congregation that we were not charismatic in a hospital, but if she got out of her wheelchair, I would speak and done. But we anointed people came forward, they took communion, and if they wanted prayer, our elders anointed them with oil, and the entire congregation prayed for them. Those were exciting times. I didn't talk much about what God did, but we saw arthritis healed, we saw somebody with sexually transmitted disease healed. We saw a little girl who was going into surgery the next day, when she got into surgery, the problem on her spine wasn't there. I mean, it just went on and on and on, and I didn't center in on those things, but we saw God work in a significant and a magnificent way, but you know what most of that teaching was about? Because I had so much trouble with people who teach that if you exercise the correct faith principles, everything is going to be fine, and you're going to have a new car, and you're going to have a new girlfriend, and everything and lots of money, and you're never going to have any diseases, and you're never going to die. That's the, make me so upset that I taught on it so much that the people in the church got to the point where they had become so ex. They thought God was in the business of irritating as people, that he liked to say no, that he wanted people sick, that he wanted them poor, that he wanted them miserable, and I began to realize that's the result of my teaching, how do you bring some balance into this thing? And so I spent a significant portion of that time talking about how God likes to say yes, all the promises of God find their yes, Paul said in Jesus Christ. I lifted up the passages in the Bible where it talks about how we can pray for things and things will happen, even if we have the faith that is as small as a grain of mustard seed, we can say to this mountain, be removed, and it will happen. You know, sometimes we forget that God does not like to make us miserable, that God is not a child abuser, and that sometimes he likes to say yes. So what I'm going to do, and I've run enough time because I'm going to get to some of these questions, what I'm going to do, I'm going to make the statement today, and then I'm going to talk about it tomorrow, and that is a God who does heal. A God who does fix broken marriages, a God who does bind up broken hearts, a God who is interested in your finances, and who listens to your prayers about financial disaster, a God who really does like to say yes. The statement is this, he does, you know, like to say yes. You think about that. I'm in.
Well, we'll talk a lot more about that tomorrow. He listened a couple of things. Whenever I mentioned that we're having resources that we give away free, a staff person is put on the script sheet that I have for every day from me to say as long as supplies last. So please take that to the posterior of every statement that I make as long as supplies last, because when we're out, we're out. Secondly, always use the call letters of this station when you write or call. And then thirdly, if you haven't checked out our website, you ought to do that. It's www.keylike.org. Now if you don't get that exactly right, we had a friend write it and say you're going to get to a pornographic website. So write this down and get it exactly the way I'm saying www.keylife.org. And you can learn a lot about key life. You can listen to today's broadcast. You can listen to the previous 30 broadcasts that are archive there. You can get a fought for the day. You can get a lot of neat stuff that Tim puts up on our website just by going to that particular address. I'm going to get to some of these questions. We'd love to get your questions, but you got to write them down. Send them to key life, post office box 5,000, make one Florida, 32794, key life Canada, post office box, 32150, Cambridge, Ontario, in 3H5M3. Or you can email us at steveatkeylife.org and don't use the one 800 key life number for questions. You can get a lot of neat and free stuff by calling that number. You can make a contribution, but you got to write your questions down. We get thousands of questions and the only dumb one is the one you don't ask. Let me get to some of these. This is from Illinois. How do we know that the account of Jonah and the big fish is true? Well, I'm just thinking of a funny story that has to do with that about the atheist that said to the little girl, do you really believe a big fish followed Jonah? She said, yes, but I do. She said, how did he do that? She said, well, I'll ask Jonah when I get to heaven. And the atheist said, well, what if Jonah's not in heaven? Well, a girl said, then you ask. Well, I wouldn't make your salvation dependent on your believing of that, but you need to know that Jesus referred to Jonah and the big fish. Jesus knew because he was the word and if Jesus referred to it and believed it, that's good enough for me. There are incidences, by the way, where big fish have swallowed or at least in the mouth cavity have held human beings and they survived. They were never the same, but they survived. And I saw a picture of one man who went through that. So I know it's possible. And if God says that in his word, I accept it because everybody else that says he didn't happen and he was not swallowed by big fish generally there to it. So that's enough. Jesus said it. That's cool. This is from Florida. Should we be celebrating any of my holy days of the Jewish people as they do? Well, I have some Christian friends who do. They say that the holy days of Israel reflect the salvation history of God's people. You don't celebrate them because of Romans 14 because you have to, but I have some friends who do and they find that to be a wonderful spiritual discipline. And while I don't, I have trouble just keeping track of the Lord's day or Sabbath without adding to it. And then you put Christmas and New Year's and July the 4th or all that in and it's about all I can do. But I have friends who do that. Some of my dear friends in the Worldwide Church of God still do that on occasion. And they say that it is a wonderful spiritual discipline and perhaps it is. But there's nothing in the Bible that requires that you celebrate the high holy days. Paul said some people say one day is better than the others. Some say that all days are the same. Be assured in your own heart. This is from North Carolina. I've heard you speak often of becoming accountable to someone. My desire is to have this in my life. How exactly does it work? How would such a relationship differ from the covenant relationship I have with my wife? I assume this is a guy. If he's got a wife. Let me tell you something. Wives are people with whom you have a covenant relationship and to whom you should be honest. But they're not men. Aren't you glad? And sometimes if you're a man, you need a man who understands man's stuff. And if you're a woman, you need a woman who understands woman's stuff. And I would suggest that you begin with a Bible study with men. Have a covenant relationship to pray with each other. And be as honest as you possible. And then you begin to pray that God would lead you to a mature Christian with whom you could be totally honest. Now you've got to be careful because you're likely to get a hold of the town gossip. And you don't need that. It's got to be somebody who's mature who understands grace, who will know about forgiveness, who will love you no matter what you do, but will hold you accountable. I have three guys who do that for me. And I just can't tell you what a wonderful gift they are to me. And I know the dirt on them and they know the dirt on me. So we're not even one. It's called a standoff. We're not going to talk about each other. But I love them more than I can tell you. But don't do it quickly. Pray about it. Give it time. And ask God to lead you to the person who will be here to be accountable. And for those of you who are men who are asking your wives to submit to you in the major decision, I wouldn't give you a dime for a man who isn't submitting to somebody else. And that's it. I'm out of town. No, I'm out of the studio. I'm not going out of town. But before I go, one other thing. King Byte is a listener-supported production of Key Life Network.